


gliding in the dark on an endless sea

by mido



Category: SINoALICE (Video Game)
Genre: Chronic Illness, F/F, lesbians fighting over chores because theyre a mess, mermy pops two oxy but its because of pain shes not doing them for fun, references to an eating disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28849404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mido/pseuds/mido
Summary: Fighting, then making up, in their own way.
Relationships: Cinderella/Little Mermaid (SINoAlice)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	gliding in the dark on an endless sea

**Author's Note:**

> idk i just wanted to write something and i was thinking about my lesbians. i want them to have a perfect relationship but no relationship is ever perfect without a lot of work, so heres them fucking up and making up because they care about each other and i care them
> 
> title from yeoman by baths

You sort of pick up a sixth sense for bad days, when you deal with what Ariane deals with on a daily basis. If it isn’t her entire body shaking more than usual, to the point where her fine motor skills are essentially gone, then it’s her brain, screaming until she can’t process anything outside her head or coming to a full stop, making her anxious with nothing at all to focus on. She doesn’t  _ mean _ to be a burden to anyone but herself, but living with someone else makes it hard to keep all your little tics inside. If you can call her sickness “tics”.

It starts like this: Cindy has not folded her laundry, instead thrown it across their bed for her to pick through later and hang up what she wants, or for Ariane to sift through to find and organize her own garments, folding her girlfriend’s in the process and not having a problem with it. But a migraine has troubled Ariane all morning, and she couldn’t muster up the courage to eat breakfast when she woke up either because one of many of her male coworkers had mentioned two days ago that she looked  _ meatier around the edges  _ lately. Putting aside that she didn’t even ask for his opinion on her weight in the first place, it was a shot straight to the heart of her body dysmorphia, and she’d poked all the places in her torso that seemed a little flabbier than usual earlier in the bathroom. Cindy asked her if she was having problems shitting or something since she took so long, tactful as she always is, but Ariane had just shook her head, and that was the end of that. 

So with a stomach filled with nothing but barley tea and her medication, she’d been planning on shutting the heavy curtains and taking a midday nap if only to ease her headache, but Cindy’s laundry is spread all over the comforter, and if she pushes it to the side or to the floor it’ll get wrinkled, and that will lead to Ariane gathering her own clothes from the pile and drying them again so they aren’t heinous to wear outside the house. The only other option is to fold them, but Ariane’s temples ache with a stabbing pain, and she’d rather not stay conscious for one second more. Something snaps in the back of her brain, and she clenches her hands into fists until her nails dig crescents into her palms. She gathers up as many clothes as her arms can carry, and marches straight to the room they use as an office, where Cindy is preoccupied with her computer inside. Without any further preamble and so much as a warning, she dumps the fresh clothes into Cindy’s lap and onto her desk, right over her keyboard where she’d been typing.

“Hey, what the fuck?” Cindy pulls her headphones off and tosses them to the side. Her face scrunches up in annoyance. Ariane can’t really see straight through the rage taking hold of all of her other emotions, and a distant memory of her therapist mentioning ADHD comes with emotional dysregulation flickers in the back of her mind, but Cindy’s miffed expression just fans the flames more. “Will you please fold your laundry for once instead of waiting for me to pick up after you?” She spits, crossing her arms in front of her and trying valiantly not to shake and ruin the image. Cindy’s face splits open in shock for a moment, like it always does when Ariane stands up for herself, but it erodes into anger within a moment. “Did I ask you to fold it?” She bites out, turning her chair so she’s facing Ariane head on, now.  _ She still looks beautiful, even when she’s yelling at me, _ Ariane thinks faintly, subconsciously.

Still, she doesn’t stop. “Whenever you bring it back, you throw it all over the bed and wait for me to fold it.” Ariane explains, in a trembling tone that reeks of frustration. “No matter how long I leave it, you never move it yourself.” 

Cindy’s expression darkens. “I didn’t fucking ask you to fold it.” She hisses, fire blazing in her pupils like it always does when she gets angry. “Just push it off! It’s not even yours!” 

Ariane’s fingernails dig into the crooks of her elbows where she’s crossing her arms. “Mine is usually mixed in, and I don’t want it to get wrinkled on the floor.” She bites at the inside of her lip to keep her tone steady. Cindy scoffs. “Then fold your own and I’ll deal with my own shit.” 

Red coats the corners of Ariane’s eyes. She inhales quickly, then says with more force than necessary, “I don’t know why you can’t just do one chore yourself!” 

The reaction is instantaneous. Cindy’s eyes narrow, and she stands from her chair in one fluid motion, stalking past Ariane and into the living room. “Don’t walk away from me when I’m talking to you!” Ariane shouts, her volume surprising even herself, but Cindy doesn’t stop, slipping her coat and her sneakers on without a word to her girlfriend before slamming the door behind her.

The empty air hangs heavy around Ariane’s brain. Her head still hurts, and now half their mixed laundry is strewn across the office, in a pile on Cindy’s desk. She wants to cry, she wants to yell. But she doesn’t do either, because crying isn’t going to fix anything, and neither is screaming. She takes a shuddering breath, and reaches forward to gather the still loose clothes into her arms, trembling viciously all the while. She manages to make it back to the bedroom without losing anything along the way. 

The rest is still spread across the bed, in lumps. She places the pile in her arms gingerly on the floor by the foot of the bed, mentally crossing her fingers with all her might that she won’t have to redry anything in this load, and places the rest across the comforter there, too. With that out of the imminent way, she allows herself to collapse on her back in bed, allows herself to be comforted by the smell of the detergent they last used on the pillowcases and the faint scent of Cindy’s fragrance mist and her own perfume, twined together like threads in the sheets. A tear escapes the corner of her eye, but Ariane doesn’t really feel like crying right now, because all it ever does is make her think about how pathetic her life is, how pathetic she is. How pathetic Cindy must think she is. She grabs the comforter and pulls it over her, curling into a ball on Cindy’s side of the bed, despite everything. From the exhaustion of emotional turmoil and her horrid migraine both, she drifts off within minutes, surrounded on all sides by Cindy’s smell, her leftover shape in the mattress, the blankets doused in her presence the second she touched them. Ariane sleeps like she’s been awake for days.

When she blinks her eyes open again, the curtains have been pulled shut, which she didn’t do before climbing into bed, so she supposes Cindy must have come home while she was asleep. Her heart twinges remembering the remark she made, and she immediately moves to sit up and swing her legs out, but her back flares up with pain the moment she does-- the deep, aching kind in her vertebrae that no amount of stretches and yoga seem to abate. She has a bottle of oxycodone prescribed for these exact times, but it sits in the kitchen medicine cabinet, many feet away from her current location. Still, she attempts to persevere, forcing herself to her feet, however unsteadily-- until she trips taking the first step forward and lands on her side, hard. Fireworks go off in her nerves from the impact, and her entire upper half feels like it’s about to light on fire from the pain.  _ Sometimes, _ she thinks, fleetingly, _ I wish I was dead, so it didn’t hurt so much. _

Footsteps approach the door hurriedly-- Cindy must’ve heard her tumble. “Annie?” She calls, stepping inside the bedroom, her eyes landing on her girlfriend in a heap to the side of the bed immediately. She all but dashes the five steps she needs to take to reach her side. “Fuck, shit, are you okay? Here.” She grabs Ariane’s hand and steadies her other one on her waist, carefully raising her so she can sit back on the mattress again. Ariane exhales, then inhales, and exhales again. Cindy recognizes it as her breathing exercises for when she’s in tremendous amounts of pain, or about to have a panic attack. They’re pretty much the same. She hovers for a moment, not really sure what to do to help calm her physically or mentally, but she pushes lightly on her shoulders, forcing her to lie back against the pillow. “Hey, take it easy, okay? I’ll go get your painkillers, just wait for me, okay?” She squeezes Ariane’s hand tightly, as if the warmth will tide her over until Cindy is back. Ariane smiles, slightly, at the accidental roughness Cindy handles her with, even now. She doesn’t dislike it at all; it feels good, to be treated like something that won’t just shatter one day.

Cindy is back within seconds, carrying an orange pill bottle and a glass of water, as well as a bottle of something balanced under her arm. She pops open the pill bottle, and when she looks at Ariane questioningly, her girlfriend holds up two fingers, so she knocks two circular tablets into her palm. Ariane forces herself up into a sitting position, soothing herself with the knowledge that it’s only for a few moments, and accepts the tablets, sticking them on the end of her tongue then swallowing them with a mouthful of water. She immediately collapses back onto the pillow after that, and Cindy places the glass aside for her on the bedside table. “Ah… anything I can do to help?” She asks sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck like a child that’s made a mistake. It makes Ariane want to jump her, in all honesty, but she’s sure that if she tried to sit up her body would paralyze itself. No, she doesn’t know how bodies work, screw off. Instead, a small smile dances upon her lips, and she reaches for Cindy’s hand, tangling her manicured fingers together with Cindy’s calloused ones. “I’ll be okay.” She murmurs, sounding a lot weaker than she actually feels, but she supposes that’s alright. “Thank you for helping me.” 

Her girlfriend stares at her for a second, before swatting her on the head with her other hand, gentle as could possibly be. “Of fucking course I’m going to help you when you just  _ collapse _ like that, I’m not some man.” She mutters, clearly a little flustered despite her crude words. Even if her cheeks don’t go as rosy as they could, Ariane feels it through their joined hands, or something poetic like that. She allows herself to grin a little wider.

“I’m sorry I like, ran out earlier.” Cindy admits, taking on a slightly more solemn tone. “I know I suck at chores, so I just don’t do them, but it’s fucked to make you feel like you have to if I don’t, so I should try more, I guess.” Her voice is unbelievably somber, like she’s afraid Ariane will lash out again if she doesn’t sound remorseful enough. Ariane hates that she did that, but it was a little justified. She just… didn’t quite go about it right.  _ I let my emotions get the better of me, _ she thinks, sadly,  _ again. _

She squeezes Cindy’s hand where it’s wrapped around hers. “No, I… I shouldn’t have yelled.” Ariane murmurs, trying her best to say the right words, whatever they may be. “I’m sorry. Thank you for coming back.” She tries to smile reassuringly.

Cindy snorts, misplaced as it may be. “Obviously I was going to come back, I just had to cool my head.” She says honestly. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me since clean underwear.” She looks up at Ariane, and her eyes are brimming with affection. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

Ariane flushes, turning her face away at the compliment. “It’s not like I’d want to get rid of you…” She whispers, near inaudible through her embarrassment. Cindy grins at her, and plants a kiss on the back of her hand, like a promise. Like saying  _ I’m sorry. _ Like saying,  _ I love you. _


End file.
